A handful of University of Northern Colorado students spent the past several months sewing packs, making dry bags, learning to paddle and generally preparing for one heck of a trip.
Next week, a group of eight students, faculty and experts will paddle 290 miles into the Arctic Circle to research how changing temperatures might affect tree growth in the area. The group started their journey by vehicle, leaving Greeley on Tuesday.
James Dunn, a UNC professor and chairman of the school’s department of geography and geographic information science, has been on trips like this before. He has some interesting stories, including one about running out of food halfway through the trip and being miraculously saved by a local bush pilot.
That was a long time ago, and this group prepared to make sure things like that don’t happen on its 21-day trip, even with things such as satellite phones providing a bit of a safety net.
The energy was high two weeks ago as students practiced packing the gear into the SUV they’d drive up to Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories, where they’ll catch a charter flight to the start of their paddle trip Monday. They needed to make sure everything would fit in the SUV. In the end, they decided they’d probably need to affix the boats to the roof to make enough room for the students to comfortably drive the vehicle.
The expedition will begin at the Coppermine River from Rocknest Lake and end at the mouth of the river at Coronation Gulf in the Canadian Northwest Territories and Nunavut Territory.
Dunn’s research project aims to gauge how far north spruce tree growth – from seeds – has moved since his first visit there 40 years ago. About 40 years ago, he said, summer temperatures wouldn’t get warm enough for seeds past a northern point. Trees past that point survived by growing new trees from the limbs and branches of old ones instead of reproducing from seeds.
But now he thinks more spruce trees will have pushed the growth point farther north.
“Now we think the world is getting warmer up in the north,” Dunn said.
With those increasing temperatures, scientists – including Dunn – believe the viable seed line will have moved north.
“The only way to (prove) that is to collect viable seeds along the way this whole trip,” he said.
The eight-member team will spend 21 days collecting seeds and marking the locations where they collect them. Upon their return, they’ll analyze the collected seeds in the lab and run tests to determine if they’re capable of sprouting.
The research collected by Dunn and the students will become part of scientific conversation about increasing northern temperatures.
“It’s physical, tangible evidence instead of just numbers from a satellite saying it’s 4 degrees warmer,” Dunn said. “It’s a sign of climate change if (the viable seed line) in fact moved north.”
The group will paddle in inflatable canoes every day, camp each night in remote wilderness and cook their own food, which they will have to ration throughout the trip.
The first few days of river will have choppy, technical, white water rapids.
But after the rapids, the river should quiet down until the expedition reaches its final destination of Kugluktuk, an Inuit village.
It’ll be hard work, with at least six hours of paddling per day. Most of the students have been trying to exercise and build some muscle in advance of the trip.
Each person’s boat will be loaded down with gear – about 40 pounds of food each and another 30 pounds of personal belongings.
Everyone on the trip has an acute awareness of his or her gear’s weight. They have to keep the total weight of their starting gear low enough for their chartered plane to safely take them to the river. Plus, every pound they pack – their 40-pound boats included – they’ll have take through the long journey. Yet somehow Dunn found room to pack a small guitar.
“You can’t go on a three-week camping trip without a guitar,” he said and chuckled.
They’re up north far enough the sun won’t set the whole trip, Dunn said.
For some, such as UNC senior Jane Allen, it’ll be their first paddle trip. She said she’s been camping before, but never anything as intense as her upcoming journey.
“My goal is to not fall in (the river),” Allen said. “Because once you fall in the water is extremely cold. You only have a few moments before you would start losing feelings in your arms and legs.”
She said she’s nervous enough she’s thought about the challenges of the trip a lot, but Allen is too excited to let it stop her.
“This is the trip of a lifetime,” she said. “The landscape in the arctic is changing drastically due to climate change. … I think there are challenges, but I’m eager to take them on.”
